Just weeks after the mayoral election in Madrid on a wave of sweeping political change in the Spanish capital, Manuela Carmena has proposed renaming ‘Margaret Thatcher Plaza’, less than a year after it was dedicated to the Iron Lady.
Left-leaning Carmena, who has been embraced by the Madrid populace for her no-nonsense stance and eschewing the perks associated with the job, is considering changing the name following the advice of one of her coalition partners from Podemos, a left-wing protest party.
Podemos, which takes its name from a Spanish translation for Barack Obama’s iconic ‘Yes we can’ election slogan, argues that the plaza named after the late UK prime minister should not "carry the name of the Iron Lady who enslaved the workers’ movement", according to Spanish daily El Confidencial.
Podemos’ elected officials in Madrid’s city government also claimed that the square’s renaming after the Conservative prime minister lacks legitimacy, as it was inaugurated by Ana Botella, a former Popular Party mayor of Madrid, who “was not elected by anyone.”
Ms Botella never contested the Madrid mayoral election, but rose to the position of political head of the capital in 2003 when the then mayor, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, resigned from office to take up a position as the justice minister in the Spanish cabinet.
Following the death of Mrs Thatcher, whose hard-line policies regarding Northern Ireland and the miner strikes in Britain were reviled by many, Ms Botella championed her legacy as a “pioneer” and “inspiration” by renaming a plaza after her in September, 2014.
One of the many murals celebrating Madrid's new mayor, Manuela Carmena [ActualNet]
The Spanish capital’s electorate has long been staunchly conservative, but in the recent mayoral elections, the Popular Party’s 24-year run at the head of the city’s authorities came to an abrupt end when former judge and communist Manuela Carmena claimed the office at city hall.
Since her election victory, Ms Carmena has become a hugely popular figure for thousands of Madrileños, for declining many of the benefits associated with the office. She has taken a salary cut and can be seen riding the city’s metro underground train instead of using the chauffeur-driven car to which she is entitled. She has also renounced Madrid city hall’s claim to an official corporate box at the Las Ventas bullring, as well as the government box at the opera house.
While an alternative name for Margaret Thatcher Plaza has not yet been chosen, the leading suggestion is currently Nikola Tesla, the pioneering Serbian-American engineer.
